Red Right Hand

29.

CAMERON’S FOOTFALLS ECHOED like a snare drum down the empty hall, mirroring the pounding of her pulse. Just keep moving, she told herself, and don’t look back.

She looked back. Locked eyes with her pursuer through the hall door’s inset pane, narrow and crosshatched with wire.

When Hendricks had told her to get out of the hospital, she was scared-as anybody would have been-but she was also half convinced that he was overreacting. She’d been so careful. So clever. Sure, she’d walked past the Reston boy’s room a few times. It had been easy enough to find once she’d gained access to the hospital’s electronic chart system. She’d peeked through the open door as she walked by, but she’d never slowed, never stopped, never engaged. Instead, she’d set up in the waiting area beside the nurses’ station, which was just a widening of the hallway, really, with a few banks of chairs and a side table full of magazines, where she could keep an eye on them from a distance. When she saw Hannah head for the restroom, she followed.

She was sure no one had been shadowing her then. The only people in the waiting area were obviously camped out while their loved ones were being treated. They all had the greasy, stretched-thin look of folks who’d been awake too long and forced to consider the worst.

The restroom had been empty save for Cameron and Hannah. And once they’d spoken, Cameron relocated to the cafeteria.

So how had this guy gotten onto her?

She’d spotted him as soon as she’d finished talking to Hendricks, closed her laptop, and headed for the cafeteria exit. Not the main exit, the one that cut through the hospital’s small courtyard. She figured the courtyard was less traveled, that someone following her would be more obvious if she went that way-and she was right.

It was no wonder she’d missed him before. He looked to be of average height and weight, and he was dressed to blend in-T-shirt, jeans, and canvas jacket. But his hair was cut high and tight like former military, and it was a little warm inside the hospital for a jacket. He wore it to conceal the shoulder holster beneath it, which was briefly visible when he moved just so.

She thought she’d shaken him when she exited the courtyard. She’d sprinted around the nearest corner, her laptop cradled to her chest like a football, and didn’t slow until she’d taken two more turns. But then, as she headed toward the outpatient surgery entrance, he’d materialized as if from nowhere fifty feet ahead of her, between her and the door.

She turned and ran, slammed into a medication cart, and nearly wound up on her ass. “Watch it!” the nurse pushing it barked, although the damn thing was so heavy, it was in no danger of tipping over. Cameron spun and kept on going, her pursuer close behind.

She thought she’d lost him a second time when she ducked into the elevator as the doors were sliding shut. She got off at its first stop and darted through an automated door labeled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY as it swung closed behind a pair of nurses wheeling an unconscious patient. But then, somehow, there he was again-scowling at her through the glass. She felt like she was wearing a goddamn tracking device.

He approached the door. Cameron’s heart rate trebled, and she took off running. She ducked around corners at random-a left, a right, another left-and then ran smack into a security guard.

He was a husky kid in his twenties with dirty-blond hair and watery eyes. The kind of guy who looked like he ended up a security guard because he’d washed out of the police academy. But he had a badge, a radio, a gun. To Cameron, his chintzy brown-on-brown uniform seemed like a gleaming suit of armor.

“Are you lost, ma’am? This is a restricted area.”

“I’m not lost-I’m being chased.”

“Chased?”

“Yeah. You have to help me. Some creep’s been following me all over the hospital. I think he has a gun. I only ducked in here because I was hoping I could lose him.”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem. How about we head back to the security office and sort this out? If there’s a strange man chasing women through the hospital, I’m sure my boss will want to hear about it.”

“Actually, I’m in a bit of a hurry, so if you wouldn’t mind just escorting me to the nearest exit-” Cameron said, but the guard cut her off.

“Relax,” he said, “this won’t take long.”

He put his hand around her upper arm-squeezing a little tighter than Cameron thought appropriate-and guided her down the hall the way she’d come. “Hey, easy!” she said and tried to yank her arm loose. But he held fast-and gave the surveillance camera in the corner a subtle nod.

Too late, Cameron realized why she’d been unable to lose her pursuer.

“Look,” she said. “Clearly, there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

“I don’t think there has.”

“Excuse me?”

“We got word from HQ a few hours ago about a potential threat to the Restons, so we’ve been monitoring their son’s room. The third time you walked by, we sent them your picture-and do you know what they found?” Cameron stared blankly at him. “A sheet as long as my arm. Identity theft. Bank fraud. Unlawful possession of prescription narcotics. You name it. What kind of sicko preys on people in a hospital?”

Theft? Fraud? Drugs? What the hell was he talking about? You have to get out of this, she thought. Convince him to let you go. Beg, if need be.

“Listen,” she began, searching his chest for a name tag. But he wasn’t wearing one. The only marking on his uniform shirt was an embroidered corporate logo made to look like a badge: a shield emblazoned with a crenellated tower. And stitched beneath it, in small block type, were the words CITADEL SECURITY: A BELLUM INDUSTRIES COMPANY. “You’ve got this all wrong. I never-”

“Save your breath. You’re caught. Besides, my boss’ll be here soon.”

Cameron heard footfalls approaching, and her heart fluttered in her chest. She tried to squirm free of the security guard’s grip. He shoved her backward into the wall and pinned her there, his forearm to her neck. She couldn’t breathe. An involuntary squeak escaped her throat. He eased off just a hair. She sucked wind and sobbed. Tears and snot poured down her face.

“Please,” she managed. “Please.”

He was so close that she could see the pockmarks on his forehead. His fetid breath was hot against her cheek. “Beg all you want,” he said. “It’s not gonna do you any good.”

Cameron swallowed hard, her eyes wide as silver dollars.

Then she kneed him in the balls with everything she had.

He released her and doubled over, red-faced and sweating. Cameron gripped her laptop with both hands and swung it at his face. A crack of plastic shattering as it connected with his chin, and he went down. Lettered keys scattered across the floor.

Cameron ran. Her pursuer rounded the corner, cursing when he spotted the fallen security guard. He leaped over the kid with ease and raced after Cameron, quickly closing the gap between them. She felt the fingers of his right hand graze her shoulder.

No. Not graze. Take hold of.

He grabbed a fistful of her shirt and yanked, but as he did, he slipped on a loose keyboard letter, and they toppled to the floor.

The man wound up flat on his back with Cameron on top of him. He tried to wrap his arms around her, but she threw fists and elbows wildly, and felt a surge of savage delight when one connected with his nose. It gouted blood, and when he reached instinctively toward it, she clambered free.

He grabbed her by the ankle. Cameron kicked him in the face, and he released her. She launched herself down the hall like a sprinter from the starting blocks, a feral smile parting her lips as she looked back at the bloody mess she’d made of her assailant.

Then the security guard tackled her and drove her to the floor.

She landed facedown, the wind knocked out of her. The linoleum was gritty from foot traffic and smelled of vomit, of bleach. The security guard climbed atop her and drove his knee into her back. Then he yanked her right arm upward in a hammerlock. Cameron’s wristbones ground together in his grasp. The tendons in her shoulder burned white-hot as they overextended.

“You like that, you fucking bitch?”

He tried to cuff her, but she resisted, bucking beneath him with all she had, so he grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face into the floor.

Cameron stopped fighting.

Her world went dark and silent as consciousness abandoned her.